MANAMA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain yesterday to help calm weeks of protests by the Shi’ite Muslim majority, a move opponents of the Sunni ruling family on the island called a declaration of war.
Analysts saw the troop movement into Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, as a mark of concern in Saudi Arabia that concessions by the country’s monarchy could inspire the conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom’s own Shi’ite minority.
About 1,000 Saudi soldiers entered Bahrain to protect government facilities, a Saudi official source said, a day after mainly Shi’ite protesters overran police and blocked roads.
“They are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) force that would guard the government installations,” the source said, referring to the six-member bloc that coordinates military and economic policy in the world’s top oil-exporting region.
Bahrain said yesterday it had asked the Gulf troops for support in line with a GCC defence pact. The United Arab Emirates has said it would also send 500 police to Bahrain.
Witnesses saw some 150 light armoured troop carriers, ambulances, water tankers and jeeps cross into Bahrain via the 25-km (16-mile) causeway and head towards Riffa, a Sunni area that is home to the royal family and military hospital.
Bahrain TV later showed footage it said was of advance units of the joint regional Peninsula Shield forces that had arrived in Bahrain “due to the unfortunate events that are shaking the security of the kingdom and terrorising citizens and residents”.
It later said a second wave of forces had arrived.
Analysts say the largest contingent in a GCC force would come from Saudi Arabia, worried about spillover to Shi’ites in its own Eastern Province, the centre of its oil industry.
Bahraini opposition groups including the largest Shi’ite party Wefaq said the move was an attack on defenceless citizens.
“We consider the entry of any soldier or military machinery into the Kingdom of Bahrain’s air, sea or land territories a blatant occupation,” they said in a statement.
“This real threat about the entry of Saudi and other Gulf forces into Bahrain to confront the defenceless Bahraini people puts the Bahraini people in real danger and threatens them with an undeclared war by armed troops.”
The White House said the United States did not consider the arrival of Saudi security forces to constitution and invasion. It urged the Bahrain government, however, to exercise restraint in upholding order.
The arrival of the Saudi forces came after mostly Shi’ite demonstrators overwhelmed Bahraini police on Sunday and blocked the highway to the main financial district in the most violent confrontations since troops killed seven protesters last month.
Those barricades were still up yesterday, with protesters checking cars at the entrance to the Pearl roundabout, the focal point of weeks of protests.
On the other side of the same highway, police set up a roadblock preventing any cars moving from the airport towards the financial area.
In areas across Bahrain, vigilantes, some armed with sticks or wearing masks, guarded the entrances to their villages. Sectarian clashes broke out in Madinat Issa, witnesses said.
